Small firms failing drivers on safety

A NEW study has applauded larger fleets for their efforts in protecting at-work drivers but found that many smaller companies were falling short of putting in place even basic requirements.

More than 2.000 company representatives including fleet operators, managing directors, finance directors and human resources managers were questioned for the survey.

The results found that almost half of respondents did not have an individual within the company responsible for road safety (49%) and that while 40% were aware of the Health and Safety Executive's "Driving for Work' handbook, many had still not implemented any sort of policy.

The company behind the road safety survey, fleet soft­ware firm Jaama claims it is the biggest of its kind undertaken after gathering and track­ing responses from companies operating fleets of more than five vehicles throughout 2005.

Jaama managing director Jason Francis said the survey showed that fleet executives in larger organisations were getting to grips with managing Occupational road risk but that smaller companies in general still had a long way to go to implement meaningful poli­cies. He said: 'With the signifi­cant amount of road safely publicity during 2005 this research shows that although there is still a huge lack of awareness among smaller fleets, duty of care awareness is improving.'

Francis added: 'Our research concluded that larger fleets and those that have regular access to fleet information were reasonably well informed and generally had good policies in place. 'However, the vast majority of operators of small fleets -90% of the respondents oper­ated sub-200 vehicle fleets -were falling short of even basic requirements and it is this sector that we must educate further."